Origin

In Anglo-Saxon times stitch was used to describe any sharp stabbing pain rather than just a pain in the side caused by strenuous exercise. The word is related to stick. Shakespeare seems to have been the first to mention a stitch brought on by laughing. In Twelfth Night Maria invites her fellow conspirators to observe the lovelorn Malvolio, saying: ‘If you…will laugh yourselves into stitches, follow me.’ The sewing sense of stitch arose in the Middle Ages. According to the 18th-century proverb, a stitch in time saves nine. In other words, if you sort out a problem immediately, it may save a lot of extra work later. There does not seem to be any particular significance in the choice of the number nine aside from its similarity in sound to the word ‘time’. Stitch up, meaning ‘to frame or betray someone’, is recorded only from the 1970s. It was probably suggested by the betrayal being as neat and conclusive as an invisible repair to an item of clothing.